When the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Kansas City asked me to write about the diaconate I found I knew very little about it. The new leader for our diocese, Archbishop Shawn McKnight, set me straight — or, at any rate, his book did.
But it was interviewing a friend who is a deacon that was really eye opening for me.
The icon of the diaconate is the water basin and towel.
Archbishop McKnight describes why the “parable-in-action” of Jesus washing the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper sums up the diaconate.
The Second Vatican Council, in expanding the permanent diaconate, laid out “theological fundamentals” of the diaconate
“1) as a rank of the ordained ministry intended for service; 2) which is exercised in three areas of liturgy, word and charity; and 3) in communion with the bishop and his [priests]; 4) for the benefit of the people of God.”
In other words, deacons imitate the service of Jesus, in the world, in the liturgy, and in humility, for others.
Like Jesus washing feet, deacons’ main tasks aren’t in the Mass but outside it.
It’s always surprising in John’s Gospel that when he recounts the Last Supper, he skips the Institution of the Eucharist, but describes what happened before the “first Mass.”
Deacon Stan Sluder at my parish in Atchison, Kansas, said his ministry is the same way.
“The liturgical service I do is great, but there are many ways to accomplish what I do in the liturgy,” he said. “It is the work in the prison and the nursing homes that is my most important contribution. There is not a long line of people waiting to do what I do in the prison.”
Nor could a lay person replicate what he does.
“Ordination transforms the service a deacon does,” said Sluder, who also serves at Benedictine College as Executive Vice President. “All the things I do in the prisons and nursing homes I could have done as a lay person, but I didn’t have the grace or the humility. I was unwilling to give up a whole weekend to ministry. But with my ordination, now I am, and I do it with great joy.”
He emphasizes what he learned in formation:
“When I show up at a nursing home as a lay person, it is just me showing up, and that’s a great service to the people. But after you are ordained, when you show up, it is the whole Church that shows up for those people.”
Additionally, while Jesus put himself at the service of the first bishops, the Apostles, deacons serve their successors.
Archbishop McKnight’s book looks at the historical and New Testament basis for deacons, and sees them not as assistants to priests but minsters of the bishop. This is symbolized by the deacon lifting the chalice at Mass, an action that originally belonged to the bishop.
“What I really loved about what I read is how he talks about the deacon’s humility,” said Deacon Sluder. “The humility comes from his obedience to the bishop, not because his service is menial. We do it humbly but it doesn’t mean that the service is unimportant.”
Sluder said it is providential that McKnight is leading an archdiocese with many deacons — and providential for a place like Atchison, where six deacons currently live.
Deacon Sluder said a transformation occurs when a deacon is ordained.
For Sluder that means that the Spirit called him when his children were young, but that he could respond fully only recently — after his life had made him into someone more capable of surrendering himself to God. “My formal formation as a deacon was six years, but in my life it took decades,” he said.
He said Archbishop McKnight’s work neatly sums up what happens in the life of a deacon: “the Spirit calls, the man responds, the Church ordains, and the deacon serves.”
